Did the Civil War have to happen? Instead of firing on Fort Sumter, what if the South instead just served papers on the North? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

Did the Civil War have to happen? Instead of firing on Fort Sumter, what if the South instead just served papers on the North?

by Mark-Ohlcidhe

If the south peacefully resigned from the Union, would the North still have taken military action? Was there anything legally holding the Union together, could the states have just asked for a divorce?

Iphikrates

The cause of the Civil War - the refusal of Southern states to give up the right to enslave human beings - is laid out in detail in this older thread by /u/Georgy_K_Zhukov. The legality of secession is a difficult subject which /u/freedmenspatrol covers in detail here.